The Byronic Hero as categorized by P.L. Thorslev

Peter L. Thorslev analyzes the Byronic hero intensively in his book The Byronic hero: types and prototypes (1965), noting that ―the genesis of the Byronic Hero has not been so definitively studied as most scholars suppose‖ (p. 8). He believes that ―no poetry in English affords a better opportunity for the study of the Romantic hero than that of Lord Byron‖ (1965, p. 8). According to him, Byron ―is the one poet in the Romantic Movement whose hero was his poetry, or whose poetry existed for his hero‖. Moreover, professor Thorslev supposes that the Romantic heroes summarize ―many of the most important aspects of Romanticism, and the Byronic Hero shows the elements of every major type of Romantic hero‖. Thorslev‘s book is a thorough and impressive paperback of just what it claims to be the major examples and antecedents of the Byronic Hero in the Romantic period and its preceding eras. To understand the root of this figure, the author attempts to find out his widespread influence, including how he continues to shape conceptions of the heroic in the modern-day, even by his absence in an anti-heroic climate. As we have

already mentioned, there had not been a definitive study of this character type‘s ancestors in the literature at large before Byron, and the author investigates to explain that the Byronic Hero, for all of his identification with his namesake, did not emerge full-grown from Byron‘s head, but it derived out of a well-established tradition that had developed along the centuries. Thorslev believes that Lord Byron influenced and was influenced by the cultural trends that created the Romantic hero.

The author launches his investigation by providing a set of prototype ―pre-romantic heroes, including the Child of Nature, the Hero of Sensibility (the Man of Feeling or the Gloomy Egoist), and the Gothic Villain‖. Throughout the first chapter of his book Thorslev gives a thorough analysis of each type, listing numerous examples, and drawing wide outlines of their basic characteristics and determining their expansion at the same time proving how they attribute to one another in further subdivisions.

Afterwards, the author investigates the manifestations of the Byronic Hero himself, including The Noble Outlaw, Faust, Cain/Ahasuerus, and Satan/Prometheus.

Each of these categories grasps a chapter-length analysis with a signified evolution in their appearance, as Thorslev approaches Byron‘s own use of these characters.

Considerably, the legendary figures like Satan, Faust, and Prometheus receive impressive attention resulting in the growth of enthusiasm for these characters and evolving from merely sentimentalized beginnings to the colossal phenomenon at the height of the Romantic Movement.

Agreeing with the author‘s final chapters, one can add that Lord Byron himself developed conceptions of the Romantic hero in the various stages of his composing and moved further and further towards a more unified characterization of

his heroes. The heroes are given in the samples of his works as Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Turkish Tales, Manfred and Cain; prove the establishment of the Byronic type as being the highest expression of the poet‘s conception of the Romantic Hero.

Relying on Thorslev‘s theory, one can determine the literary hero types that Lord Byron established in obtaining the legendary Byronic hero by borrowing some characteristics from the pre-Romantic eighteenth century types ―the Child of Nature‖, ―the Hero of Sensibility‖, ―the Gothic Villain‖, and the Romantic types ―the Noble Outlaw‖, ―Faust, Cain/Ahasuerus‖ and ―Satan/Prometheus‖. Thorslev supposes that studying above mentioned hero types separately will ―provide antecedents and a context, a scheme and a terminology, for the discussion of the Byronic Hero himself, who is always a combination of these elements, sometimes unified and sometimes not‖ (1965, p. 21). The scholar believes there to be clear and coherent relationships between those individual figures above, even a few of them can be said to ―fade into‖ one another, ―as do colors in the spectrum – the Gothic Villain into the Noble Outlaw, for instance – and the possible combinations, as is the case with the primary hues of the spectrum, provide an almost infinitive variety of types and shades.‖ (1965, p. 20). The relationship between these major groups and the members of the certain period can be surely clear.

Therefore, while researching for his study on the Byronic Hero, Thorslev reveals that “the Child of Nature‖ includes ―all of the naive, unsophisticated, usually impulsive and somewhat aggressive types, with primitivistic or at least ‗close-to-nature‘ origins‖ (1965, p. 21); ―the Hero of Sensibility‖ in his turn carries ―the relatively well-bred and sophisticated cultivators of feelings – feelings ranging from

graveyard gloom through the merely tearful to the whimsical‖ (1965, p. 21) and by that the author means ―to denote the hero who is distinguished not by daring exploits or superior intelligence, but quite simply by his capacities for feeling, mostly for the tender emotions-gentle and tearful love, nostalgia, and a pervasive melancholy‖

(1965, p. 35). The two 18^th century forms of this type – ―the Man of Feeling‖ and

―the Gloomy Egoist‖ – became famous before 1780, but ―the Hero of Sensibility‖

remained a dominant type of hero all the way through the Romantic Movement.

―Closer to the Child of Nature than the Gloomy Egoist, the Man of Feeling is probably the more important of the two for the Romantic Movement‖ (Thorslev, 1965, p. 35). ―The Man of Feeling‖ in his turn was a new type in the 18^th century.

The historians agree that ―the Man of Feeling‖ and ―the Child of Nature‖ have some common philosophical background as ―the belief in the moral goodness of the

‗natural man,‘ and the egalitarian conception of common reasonableness, both in man and in the natural universe‖ (Thorslev, 1965, 36).

The name of ―the Gothic Villain‖ is of course ―self-explanatory‖ as Thorslev believes (1965, p. 21), yet it is worth mentioning that the Gothic Villain is an antagonist hero in the Gothic Novel who is presented as a dark ―yet striking and frequently handsome man, of about middle age or somewhat younger, he has a tall, manly, stalwart physique, with dark hair and brows frequently set off by a pale and ascetic complexion‖. He has some more identifying characteristics as being: shifty, cunning, and able to mold their behavior to match the need of the circumstance.

Accordingly, villains will take advantage of deterrence, deceit, and even seduction to attain their objective.

Meanwhile, two of the major 18^th century types – ―the Child of Nature‖ and

―the Man of Feeling‖ – believe in the concept of the indispensible decency of human nature, and of the usefulness or even the essentiality of all moral suasion being affected through an appeal to the emotions. However, ―neither of these types is really a thoroughgoing rebel in his society‖ (Thorslev, 1965, p. 21). Despite the fact that

―The Man of Feeling‖ shares the moral and social norms of his hero-neighbors, he is isolated from the community for his being peculiar and for obtaining an aggravated sensitivity. ―The Child of Nature‖ is also known as a hero who tries to adjust to the demands of the society. ―The Gothic Villain‖ who is also a misfit and who reflects his society around him, never sympathize the readers. On the other hand, the Romantic Heroes, from ―the Noble Outlaw‖ through ―Satan-Prometheus‖ can survive outside of the society. ―Thoroughgoing rebels invariably appeal to the readers‘ sympathies against the unfair restrictions of the social, moral, or even religious codes of the worlds in which they observe themselves‖ (Thorslev, 1965, p.

21).

Whereas ―the Gothic Villain‖ and ―the Noble Outlaw‖ share common characteristics as ―their physical appearance and bearing-dark, handsome, but with a cool reserve or even asperity of manner; in the sense of secrecy and frequently of destiny which surround their every appearance; in the frequent flashes of a guilty conscience‖, Thorslev points out that:

―there is a large and important difference: the pre-Byronic Gothic Villain (of the novel, at least) is never sympathetic; if anything, he and his crimes are made to appear even more monstrous and grotesque by the addition of gratuitous acts of cruelty or sadism; the Noble Outlaw, on the other hand, is always first a victim of, and only then a rebel against society; his sins, if not completely exonerated, are at least

palliated by reference to his innate gentleness of nature, shown especially in his courteous treatment of women‖ (1965, p. 22).

The other Romantic heroes – ―Faust and Cain/Ahasuerus‖ – are known as Romantic revivals developed in the 18^th century. ―Faust has no important forebears in eighteenth-century England, and one must go back to the Renaissance for his last significant appearance‖ (Thorslev, 1965, p. 21). And ―Cain‖ and ―Ahasuerus‖, villains previously, now represent ―the permanent and lonely wanderer, who had always an air about him of the mysterious and the supernatural and above all of destiny or tragic fate‖ (Thorslev, 1965, p. 21). It is clear that none of the famous heroes today can be as ‗pure‘ as one wants. Heroes are developed through ages in different stages by various artists and writers.